The boy's body was leaning against the wall covered in graffiti in a ginnel off Market Street, with his hands gripping his stomach and his head drooping forward. His white shirt had a bib of blood running down the front of it.

 Detective Chief Inspector Ethan Backwoods stood in the pouring rain, watching as Lucas Ross completed his photos, the raindrops frozen in midair as they fell due to electronic flash bursts. 

 Backwoods felt vexation. He has no right to be there. Not on a Saturday night at half past one in the rain.

 As if he did not already have enough issues.

 Backwoods had received the call as soon as he entered the building following a solitary evening in Leeds attending Opera North's The Pearl Fishers. Alone because his wife, Jane, had discovered on Wednesday that their season tickets conflicted with the benefit gala she was scheduled to host for the Eastvale community centre. 

 Jane had expected Backwoods to skip the opera in favour of her spectacular, but Backwoods had gone alone. They had argued. Backwoods could hardly recall the last time they had done anything together because of how frequently they had been going their separate ways lately.

 While he watched Dr. Woods, the young police surgeon, began his in-situ examination beneath the canvas tent the Scene-of-Crime officers had set up over the body. The meek melody of the "Au fond du temple saint" duet continued to play in his head.

 As he was walking his beat at eleven forty-seven, Agent Ford noticed the scene; community policing is a major initiative in Eastvale these days. He claimed that initially, he believed the victim to be merely inebriated and unable to walk home after the bars closed. Ultimately, the young man appeared to be clutching his stomach, and a shattered beer bottle lay next to him. The dark blood in the light of Ford's flashlight could have easily been mistaken for vomit. 

 Ford admitted to Backwoods that he was not sure what it was, possibly the body's strange stillness, that finally made him realise this was not a drunk sleeping it off. Or there was the silence: within the hiss and patter of the rain, there was silence, not the snoring, twitching, or muttering that drunks frequently did. He knew, of course, when he knelt down and took a closer look.

 On Carlaw Place, the ginnel was a narrow passageway that spanned two blocks of terrace houses, no wider than six feet. It was frequently used as a shortcut from Market Street to Eastvale's western section.

 Viewers had now gathered at its mouth, behind the police tape, the majority of them huddled under raincoats and pyjamas peeking out from under umbrellas. Even though it was late in the evening, lights had turned on in a number of the homes along the street. Seeking anyone who had heard or seen anything, a number of uniformed officers were moving through the crowd and rapping on doors.

 There was not much shelter from the rain provided by the ginnel walls. Backwoods could feel his neck tingling from the cold water. Pulling up his collar. The month of October was in full swing, with days bristling with warmth and mist, reminiscent of Keats, interspersed with sharp gusts of wind that drove stinging rain into your face, akin to the showers of Bluefuscuan rows fired at Gulliver.

 Backwoods observed as Dr. Woods turned the patient onto his side, loosened his pants, and took his temperature in the rectal area. Having already taken a quick look at the body, he could tell that the child had been kicked or beaten to death. His severely damaged features only made his identity as a young white male obvious. Nothing else in his pockets indicated who he was, and his wallet was gone, along with any loose change and keys he might have been carrying.

 Backwoods surmised that it had probably begun as a brawl in a bar, or maybe the victim had been flashing his cash around. Backwoods imagined the scene as it might have transpired while he observed Dr. Woods inspect the boy's fractured features.

 Perhaps realising that whatever had begun innocently enough was rapidly spiralling out of control, the child was afraid and fled. How many were pursuing him? At least two, most likely. Or perhaps three or four. Ignorant of his drenched feet, he dashes through the pitch-black, deserted streets in the rain. Does he know they're going to kill him? Or does he simply fear being defeated?

 In any case, he sees the ginnel, believes he can sneak away and get home without being caught, but it is too late. Then something hits him, trips him, knocks him down, and all of a sudden his face is pressed up against the chocolate wrappers and cigarette ends on the wet stone. 

 He can use his tongue to probe a broken tooth and taste blood, grit, and leaves. Subsequently, he experiences intense pain in his side, back, stomach, and groin, and they proceed to kick his head as if it were a football. He is trying to talk, to beg, to plead, but his mouth is too full of blood, preventing him from speaking. And finally he just slips away. No more pain. No more fear. No more anything.

 Perhaps that was how it had happened. Alternatively, it is possible that they were already waiting for him and had blocked the ginnel at both ends, trapping him inside. Backwoods's imagination had always been helpful, but some of his bosses had said he was too imaginative for his own good. 

 It would surprise people to learn how much of what they took for granted as meticulous, reasoned police work was actually based on educated guesses, gut feelings, or flashes of intuition.

 Backwoods dismissed the thought and returned his attention to the task at hand. Dr. Woods continued to kneel and illuminate the boy's mouth with a penlight. Backwoods thought it looked like a pound of raw minced meat. He moved his head off.

 A brawl in the bar, then? On Saturday nights in Eastvale, fights were not unheard of, though they rarely resulted in fatalities. This was especially the case when young men from nearby villages came in to show off their strength to the haughty townies.

 They would arrive early to watch the rugby team or Eastvale United in the afternoon, and by the time the pub was closing, they were usually three sheets to the wind, shoving one another in the lines outside the fish and chip shop, slapping everyone they saw, and generally looking for trouble. The pattern was well-known: 

 "What are you looking at?" "Nothing." Get away from that if you can. "You are calling me nothing."

 At midnight, however, most of the partygoers had usually left for home, unless they had made their way to one of Eastvale's two nightclubs, where you could get membership, an inedible battered beef burger, nonstop loud music, and—most importantly—the ability to down watery lager until three in the morning for a small admission fee.

 Not because Backwoods lacked empathy for the victim, the boy was, after all, someone's son, but because he believed that cracking the case would only require scouring the neighborhood bars to discover where the lad had been drinking and who he would be upsetting. Perhaps Detective Sergeant Corey would be a better fit for the role than a damp Detective Chief Inspector, who would rather crawl into a warm bed next to a wife who is most likely still not talking to him, and listen to Bizet's melodies in his inner ear.

 After concluding his examination, Dr. Woods approached. With his round face, nice, rustic features, and mop of chestnut hair, he looked far too young and innocent for the position. However, he was rapidly learning about the various ways that humanity could send one another to the afterlife.

 "It appears to be a boot job," he remarked, returning his black notebook to his pocket.

 "I can not confirm it, of course; Dr. Gilbert will have to make that determination at the post-mortem, but it appears that way. Based on what I can gather from the initial assessment, there are multiple skull fractures, the nose is crushed, and one eye is essentially protruding from its socket. It is possible that some of the bone fragments punctured the brain." 

 Woods exhaled. "It is a good thing the poor bugger is dead. Had he lived, he would have lived the rest of his life as a one-eyed vegetable." "No indication of any further wounds?"

 "A couple of ribs broken. And I would anticipate some serious internal organ damage. Aside from that..." Woods shrugged, casting a quick look back at the body. "I assume that someone wearing thick boots or shoes kicked him to death. Do not quote me on that, though. Additionally, it appears as though he was struck in the back of the head possibly by the bottle—"Just one person?" Woods wiped his wet hair with the side of his pants after running his hand over it. "I apologise; that was not what I meant to imply. More likely, it was two or three. Maybe a gang."

 "Yet it could have been done by one person?"

 "Yes, as soon as the victim was lying down. The problem is that he appears to be quite strong. It could have required multiple individuals to bring him down. Unless, of course, that was the intended use of the bottle."

 Does anyone know how long he has been there?

 "Not very long." Woods glanced at his timepiece. "Given the weather, I would estimate maybe two hours. Half a dozen outside."

 Backwoods quickly performed a back-calculation. Now, the time was twenty-two. This indicated that when Agent Ford discovered the child's body, it was most likely killed between ten past eleven and eleven forty-seven. Just over thirty minutes. And a half-hour fell at the exact moment the pub closed. His theory continued to seem plausible.

 "Who knows this guy?" Backwoods enquired. Dr. Woods gave a headshake.

 "Is there any chance we can get him clean enough for an artist's rendering?" Maybe give it a shot. However, as I mentioned, one eye is nearly blind and the nose is crushed.

 "Indeed, Yes, thank you, doctor." Woods nodded briskly and walked off.

 While Lucas ross continued to take pictures and the SOCOs continued their search, the coroner's officer gave the order for two ambulance attendants to bag the body and bring it to the mortuary. It continued to rain.

 Backwoods sat back on the wet wall and took a drag from his cigarette. It could aid in mental focus. In addition, he enjoyed the taste of cigarettes in the rain.

 There were tasks to complete and protocols to initiate.

 Initially, they needed to identify the victim, as well as his origins, place of belonging, and activities on the day of his death. Backwoods reasoned that someone must be missing him somewhere. Or did he seem like a stranger from a distant place?

 It would just be a matter of doing the legwork once they had some information about the victim. They would eventually find the cretins who had committed this. They would, in turn, be remorseful and conceited because they would most likely be children, at least no older than their victim. Ultimately, they would most likely face manslaughter charges if they were old enough. Five out of nine years.

 Backwoods thought to himself as he flicked his tab-end into the gutter and walked to his car, splashing through puddles that reflected the police cars' revolving lights: sometimes, it was all so bloody predictable. And he was hardly to blame for not realizing 

 how mistaken he was at that point.